


The Illusion of Choice Or Something Like That

by EmpiricBias



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Garden of Eden, Gen, Starring: Aziraphale, really short pov crowley wondering What Humans Are Even For?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 01:20:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21007340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmpiricBias/pseuds/EmpiricBias
Summary: Why make a perfect world, and then add humans?





	The Illusion of Choice Or Something Like That

The point was. The point _ was_. God had really mucked it up this time.

Angels, Crawley thought, he could understand. 

(He slithered hastily up the length of a thing that Adam had called “hmmm, it looks like, a tree, maybe” with about as much thought as he had when he’d commented, “A bit crawley aren’t you?” more than a few days ago. Good man, Adam. The only man, actually.) 

Angels were not a lot of things. They were soldiers, messengers, emissaries; perfect and immortal the only way a creation of all that is Good could be. They were an army of unflinching, immeasurable godliness, created for one and only purpose. Simple in more ways than one. “Blindingly so” was in the job description. 

Demons, he thought additionally, also made perfect sense. Demons were shadows, the opposition, the Evil, the embodiment of the price of questioning God, Angels which had Fallen for they had become incompatible with the purpose for which they had been made. Doomed to be terrible in the way that being what they were not meant to be could only be. (Lucifer, to his credit, hadn’t so much Fallen as he had realized the only power equal to God’s was the lack of Her, and designed to install himself in that place. Of course, he hadn’t counted on God, Her mercy and grace ever terrible etc. etc., moving Her hand to give him exactly what he wanted.

Crawley could appreciate that kind of irony. From a purely professional angle, of course.)

Everything that followed after; sure, sure. The earth, the waters, the land, the animals. A bit messier and fleshier and muddier than Crawley had thought was Her style, but what did he know, in the end?

But _ humans? _

The point was… What _ was _ the point of them? He’d known they wouldn’t die after eating from the Tree because no one had died when they’d forsaken the purpose She created them for. No, the consequences had always been far worse. More gallingly, _ his _ lot had never been given so much as a forewarning. “I know I made you perfect, but don’t get too excited about that, now, or else,” might not have stopped anyone from Falling, but ostensibly it would have been appreciated by more than one former angel, current demon, besides himself.

So why all this business about flesh made in Her image? What had been _ their _ purpose, and if it hadn’t been _ not _ questioning Her— which Adam had actually done a lot, in the earliest days, and then significantly less frequently after Eve had come about— then what _ wasn’t _ it? And what was it now, now that they were expelled from Paradise, and could not watch the Garden, as they had been charged?

Hell would be pleased with him, Crawley knew. Anything that caused Her angels misery (usually paperwork) pleased them. But for the hate of him, he just couldn’t figure out what exactly it was that he’d done.

Why make a perfect world, and then add _ humans? _

Vexed, Crawley scaled the wall at Eden’s east border with speed, pausing only slightly when he caught sight of a pair of white wings at the top before continuing up, up, up. 

Adam and Eve were specks in the distance when he finally reached the top. He melted away his scales and gave himself limbs and a face, and last of all unfurled his wings. They were handsome, and gray, and were a shade darker than they’d been earlier that same day.

The angel’s wings were, of course, white. Radiant, and blindingly so. Puffed up like a hilarious balloon of self-righteousness.

Crawley felt annoyed. It wouldn’t be unfunny to fill up this angel with dread and questions until each feather was altogether too heavy not to— if not make him Fall, then make him start to sink, like pouring lead slowly into the mold of a perfect creation. It would in fact be more amusing than not. The question of what angels were and what demons weren’t was much easier to answer than the equivalent question about humans.

Except.

“I gave it away,” cried the angel, hands twisting anxiously. And suddenly Crawley realized with a terrifying clarity what exactly it was that he'd done. That they'd both done. 

“Bloody humans,” he hissed under his breath, and winged away from the wall when the storm showed no sign of stopping. The Angel turned briefly to watch him leave, but made no move to chase, driven to distraction by his own empty hands, by the knowledge of his actions, weighing so heavily on his conscience—

In barely a moment Crawley was at the hill again, landing with a squelch at the foot of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and he watched as a wail of wind knocked a Fruit from the branches and to the ground.

He stooped to pick it up and, with no little amount of trepidation, took a bite.

It tasted sweet, and slightly tart. Not unlike lightning chased by rain, and not at all like the ashes and dust he’d been expecting.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in 2 hours and read one (1) wikipedia page to do it. Thank you for reading.  



End file.
